A Rose and a Rumor
by Cylinse
Summary: IYxYYH With Naraku gone and only a few more Jewel shards left, Kagome finds herself wondering who will raise Shippo in her absence…
1. Lies and Lives

**Summary**: IYxYYH With Naraku gone and only a few more Jewel shards left, Kagome finds herself wondering who will raise Shippo in her absence…

**Disclaimer:** I don't own IY. I don't own YYH.

CY: Kags is a bit ooc in this b/c I was trying to make her a bit more mature-ish... Not sure how well it came out.

* * *

**A Rose and a Rumor**

**I. Lies and Lives  
**

"Kaede," I said. I was seated across from the old woman, drinking tea. "I've told you my story; do you have any idea what's wrong with me?"

"No, child, I do not," the old woman said.

I sighed. Of course she didn't…

"But my sister once had a similar problem," Kaede added.

I perked up. "Really?" Kikyo had…

"Indeed," Kaede said. "She wasn't always so mature as in the last days of her life. When she was first given the Jewel, my sister was but a child." Kaede paused to take a sip of her tea before continuing. "She was trained already, but her mind… she wasn't at all prepared."

"What happened?" I asked as Kaede took another sip of tea, even though I already knew the answer.

"For a time, she lost her powers entirely. My sister was, naturally, devastated. She later confessed that she was so worried about protecting the Jewel that she could think of nothing else. 'What if I fail? What if I'm not strong enough?'" Kaede took another sip of tea.

"When did she…get her powers back?" I had to know.

"Well, eventually she realized that her nerves were the source of the problem…"

"…and it was all better?" I finished.

"Not at all, child."

I couldn't hide the disappointment from my face.

"However," I perked up again, "my sister went on a journey to 'find herself.'"

"And?" I pushed as Kaede sipped more tea.

"After two years, she returned stronger and wiser than before."

My face fell. "I really don't have two years to go on a journey of self-discovery."

"No, ye do not," Kaede said. "However, the problem ye faces is of a different origin than my sister's."

"What do you mean?" I was curious.

"My sister lacked the self-confidence and maturity to do her duty." Kaede sipped her tea. That particular action was beginning to grow annoying. "Ye, though… Not only have ye defeated the vile Naraku, ye have nearly completed the Jewel. Tis strange that ye would only have a problem now."

"What are you saying, Kaede?"

"Perhaps ye are worried for the future," Kaede suggested.

"What will happen when we complete the Jewel?" I asked, voicing my concern aloud.

"Indeed. What will happen?" Kaede sipped again. "Ye fear for the worst."

"Of course I do! What if I just _vanish_ the moment the Jewel is completed?" I didn't mean to yell at the older woman, but I couldn't hold it in. "I'm not ready to leave!"

Kaede took my outburst with another sip of tea. There was silence as she stood and shuffled off to pour herself some more and then returned, very carefully sitting back down in front of me.

"Child, though I hate to say it, we lived here before ye came to this world and will continue to live here after you leave."

"I know, but..." My eyes were beginning to itch with unshed tears.

"What is it that ties ye to this world?" Kaede was being harsh, but it was just what I needed and we both knew it. "All of us knew from the beginning that ye would have to return home, and though it is sad, we accepted that we would one day say farewell. Ye are worried about something else. What is it ye are trying to protect?"

'_What am I…'_

"A week ago, I woke up and realized that it was very nearly over, all of it. I was glad, but at the same time, I was terribly sad. I'd be leaving all my closest friends behind after giving up so much to be _here_ with_them.._."

"Stop dodging the problem, child."

I sighed. "I'm worried about Shippo."

"Shippo can take care of himself."

"He shouldn't have to!" I exclaimed. Feeling guilty for yelling at the old woman_again_, I continued. "He's just a kit."

"Shippo is a full demon," Kaede said. "It's likely he is older than ye."

"I know, I know." I was suddenly exhausted. "I've gone through this before in my head. I go through it all the time."

"Inuyasha could watch him," Kaede suggested with a sip of tea.

"Shippo. And Inuyasha. Alone. Together. For at least five-hundred years. Think about it."

"Perhaps his brother?" Kaede suggested.

"Do you really think Sessoumaru would let me get close enough to _ask_ him without lopping my head off? And what reason would he have to help _me_?"

"What about Miroku?"

"Bad influence. Very, very bad influence."

"And Sango?"

"A demon **_slayer_**raising a demon? Kikyo has returned to the grave, Kagura is too treacherous, Kana too stoic, Kouga too irresponsible, and Naraku is**_both_** too evil and too **_dead_**."

Kaede took a sip of tea. "What of me?"

In response, I gave Kaede a significant look. We both knew that she wouldn't last much longer. She was only mortal and already ancient for her Era.

Kaede sighed. "Have ye spoken to Shippo?"

"He tells me he can take care of himself."

"Ye should heed his words."

"I try, but… I can't let go," I said, feeling like an extremely overprotective mother. "I would feel better knowing that someone was there for him."

Kaede took a sip of tea. Finally, she said, "Then the solution to your problem is clear: ye must find Shippo a suitable guardian."

"You really think Inuyasha will allow us to take the time for it? He'll never go for it." If Kaede said so, it would all work out, but…

"No, he will not."

"Then what do you expect me to do?"

"I will tell Inuyasha that ye have returned home for a few weeks to recover from the _stress_ which has rendered ye null. Ye, in turn, will take Kirara, choose a direction, and begin your search." She took a sip of tea calmly, as though she, a kind, elderly woman, hadn't just told me to _**lie**_to my boyfriend and run off like a criminal.

"Why not tell the truth?"

"Ye said it yourself: 'He'll never go for it,'" Kaede said nonchalantly.

"But… by myself?"

"Ye will have Kirara. If ye took Sango or Miroku or even Shippo with you, he would grow suspicious," she said. "After all, they cannot follow ye home."

"And taking Kirara wouldn't be suspicious?" I asked.

"Ye will need Kirara for both transport and protection." Kaede said. "It cannot be helped."

"How will you cover her absence?"

"I will tell Inuyasha that she got into some catnip, and it made her ill. I will claim to be caring for Kirara while she recovers."

I was impressed. Kaede was thorough.

"What if Sango grows suspicious?"

"Then I tell her the truth. Inuyasha is the only one who cannot know it." Kaede was growing more hurried. I could tell she was beginning to lose patience with me. "Now, stop asking me questions about every possibility. I am skilled at disguising truth. Now go quickly."

"Fine. I'll go tell him that I'm going home for…"

"No, ye will not. I will. Ye are a _**terribl**e_ liar."

**_Kaede_** was calling me a terrible liar? I might not be the **_best_ **liar, but… just because something is true doesn't make it hurt any less…

"Fine." I stood. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, child. Be gone before Inuyasha returns from his training."

I grabbed my bow and a quiver of arrows as I left. Outside, I found Kirara and whispered my plans into her ear.

Soon I was riding through the clouds on the fire cat's back, wondering where my quest would take me. Hopefully, when I returned to Kaede I would have found Shippo a real parent and recovered my powers, because if I came back without either I'd end where I started.

As we flew across the countryside, I talked to Kirara absently. "Do you think we'll find someone? I hope so. We don't even have a rumor to start from…"

* * *

It had been three days, and my patience was beginning to wear thin. I was growing tired of needing Kirara's protection from demons I should have been able to handle myself. The demons were only attracted to me in the first place because I had (foolishly) brought the nearly completed Jewel with me. It was an oversight that I couldn't correct without failing my mission, so the two of us had to be on guard constantly for fear that we would be attacked in our sleep. 

It also didn't help that I was wearing traditional priestess garb.

After several years of running around in the Feudal Era in a miniskirt, I'd finally realized that it might be easier to wear pants, and pants had eventually morphed into "traditional priestess garb." I looked more like Kikyo than ever, but at least I didn't get singled out as foreign anymore.

Another oversight on my part: going out to ask a _demon_ for help while wearing apparel that was traditionally worn by a group of people that tended to kill demons. Not only that, but I couldn't back up my clothes' statement with powers. I'd leap that hurdle when I came to it.

Three days after running off on a whim, I was regretting my decision more than ever and wishing that I'd _planned_ everything a bit better instead of running off into the sunset. Too late now.

At least I'd picked up some juicy rumors, among other things. On the second morning, I'd overheard two women talking:

"I think I'm in love, Nona," one woman was saying. She sounded like the local lord's daughter, who I'd met briefly the previous evening.

"Really? Oh, Sakura! Is it Kaoru?" Nona said. I didn't know her. "It is, isn't it? Oh, he's so handsome!"

"No, it's not him," the other girl sighed. "I am in love with a demon."

This caught my attention immediately.

"A demon?" Nona was skeptical.

"The one who robbed father last week."

"Was he handsome?"

"He was absolutely beautiful, Nona," Sakura swooned. "He even winked at me!"

"He winked?" Nona sounded incredulous.

"And he left a rose, just for me." She held it in front of the astonished Nona.

I looked straight at the rose. If I'd had my powers, I would have said that something about it didn't seem quite right. Nothing natural was that perfect--or at least, not in the Feudal Era.

"Can you surprise them?" I whispered in Kirara's ear. She hummed in agreement and, while I hid behind a hut, snuck right up behind the girls and loosed a ferocious snarl. Both girls screamed and fled. I couldn't blame them, either. If I hadn't known that Kirara meant no harm I would have been running right with them.

Fortunately Sakura dropped her rose in her panic, and I took the opportunity to claim it. Kirara joined me moments later. We left before the girls warned the other villagers of the demon cat...

As we flew through the clouds that afternoon, I considered what I'd heard. A demon flirting with human girls and robbing lords blind? He sounded like a fox to me. I twirled his rose in my fingers. Something about it…

I chose to ignore the strange feeling it was giving me—after all, it was only a rose, and I didn't have my powers—and instead turned to asking around nearby villages about demon thieves…

I hadn't discovered anything further, though. All I had was a rose and a rumor.

The more I thought about it, though, the more certain I became that this stranger was the answer to my problems. He _had_ to be a fox like Shippo. It took about two hours, but I managed to convince myself beyond all doubt that this rumor was another step on whatever path fate had set me...

* * *

"What do you think, Kirara?" I asked the miniaturized cat as we entered another village. We'd been flying from village to village all day, dropping down in the bushes and asking about rumors of thieves and flying on again and again and again. 

The cat mewled in response. Obviously, she didn't think that we'd find anything_here_, either. After three days with only her company, I'd come to understand her better than ever before. I wished that I'd started speaking to her earlier, instead of always assuming that she was roughly equivalent to Buyo. She was extremely intelligent, though not always the best conversation.

"But it's worth a try, right?"

"Mrow," Kirara agreed.

The moment I set foot in the village, I regretted it. People immediately recognized me as a priestess, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing… until the foreman of the village came running up to me. Shit. There was trouble.

"Lady Priestess, we humble folk beg your aid," he cried, bowing low.

'_Shit shit shit,'_I was thinking, but I put on a concerned face and asked, "What is amiss?"

"My daughter was poisoned, and our own village priestess can do nothing to help her," he said. "Please, you must try your hand at saving her."

'_Don't say it, Kagome. Let it go. Tell him you're rushed or something, anything, just don't say…' _"Take me to her." _'Dammit!'_

"Oh, thank you Lady Priestess!"

"My pleasure," I grumbled as he led me away, Kirara trotting behind me.

* * *

I soon saw that his fear wasn't unfounded. I could tell that it took all of his willpower to stand against the wall, out of the way. His daughter was indeed very sick: she was so pale that she was nearly green, and her eyes stared straight up at the ceiling blankly. There was a cold sweat on her brow, and it looked as though she were dying. 

'_It looks like she's dying? She **is** dying.'_

The other priestess was younger than me, and panic colored her round face. She was new to this, maybe even more so than I. This just kept on getting worse.

"What's your name?" I asked the girl, trying to calm her down.

"H-Hana," she answered.

"Why don't you tell me what's the matter with her, Hana," I said soothingly.

She gave me a pleading look. Poor thing. Had Kikyo looked like this when she first got the Jewel? At least I could cope with these situations.

"So you aren't sure. What have you tried?"

"I don't know…" Hana stammered. "I've been trained my whole life, but I ca-can't seem to remember anything I've learned, and..."

"Why don't you go take a walk?" I suggested. "Calm down a bit?"

"O-okay," Hana said. "If she died because I couldn't… couldn't…"

"Don't worry about it," I comforted her. "She won't die."

Once Hana was gone, I looked over the girl. No infected wounds, at least. I put my hand against her forehead. Clammy, cold… she felt like a zombie. She was barely breathing.

"What's the matter with you?" I whispered. If I could have used my powers, I would have checked her over with them tenderly and discovered…

…the delicate red rose under her pillow.

I removed it. Despite all the abuse it must have been getting in its soft prison, it was as pristine as my other rose, which I now pulled out to compare. The two were from the same source, that much I could tell.

"Have you been robbed recently?" I asked the foreman.

"What? Robbed?" He asked. "What does that have to do with my daughter?"

"Please, just answer me," I said.

"I had a beautiful ruby that my wife left me," he said. "About two weeks ago, it was stolen. How does this relate to my daughter?"

"I don't know," I answered truthfully as I examined the rose. "But this rose…"

I shook my head and put both roses away. For whatever reason, I found myself drawn to the girl's left hand, and I studied it intently until I saw what I'd been looking for: an innocuous scratch on her index finger.

'_Did the rose do this?'_ I wondered.

I stood. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know what's wrong with her."

"But you knew the rose!" he protested. "You can fix her!"

"No, I can't," I answered. "For all I know, the rose could be completely unrelated to her illness."

"But…"

"I got my rose from another young woman who wasn't sick," I said, cursing my inability to say no. "I'll go back to her village and see if she has taken ill as well. If so, then I'll at least know the cause."

"And you can fix her then?"

"No, I can't," I explained. "But maybe Hana can."

"What if she can't?" he asked me.

"I don't know." I shook my head and left.

There was another time, before I'd come to the Feudal Era, when I would have done whatever I could to help the girl, but I'd since learned that no matter how much I want to, I can't save everyone.

* * *

Kirara and I flew back to the village from the second morning, where Sakura and Nona lived. Sakura, though, was fine, though still afraid to leave home just in case demon cats attacked. 

"What do you think, Kirara?" I asked the cat as we left the village for the second time.

Kirara suggested that perhaps I'd taken the rose away before it could do any harm.

"True, true. So you think that had I left the rose with her she'd be sick?"

Kirara voiced her agreement.

"So why aren't I sick?"

Kirara pointed out that I'd always been immune to the oddest things.

"Like when Sessoumaru tried to poison me the first time we met and it didn't work?"

Kirara gave the feline equivalent of a shrug.

"I want to find that thief, Kirara. I have some questions for him."

Kirara suggested that I only wanted to find him because I'd heard he was attractive.

"Kirara! I've got Inuyasha."

She was laughing at me, I realized, and I turned bright red.

The two of us headed back to Hana and the sick girl from that afternoon. It was dead silent in the night, but that was only to be expected. I returned to the foreman's hut to check on his daughter (and hopefully get something warm to eat, and a bed to sleep in). Instead, though, when I walked through his door the foreman and a group of villagers surrounded me silently.

"My daughter is dead," the foreman said, "and that woman and her demon consort are to blame."

I tried to think of something, anything, to say, but only one thing came to mind. "Shit."

* * *

As it turned out, there wasn't a proper prison in which to lock me up, so I ended up in someone's cellar instead, the door closed with a heavy lock and a metal bar across the outside. I'd heard my captors talking about burning me at the stake. 

At least they hadn't taken anything but my bow, and I wasn't alone. I had Kirara.

"Mrow?" Kirara asked, voicing what we both were thinking.

"No, I'm not going to just lay down and die," I responded, "but it's been a long night and I'm _tired_."

Kirara bit me, saying in her own way that I could rest when I was _safe_.

I groaned. "Fine. But when I find this thief fellow, I'm gonna _kill_ him for causing me all this trouble. I've only ever pulled all-nighters for tests."

Kirara wondered if finding him was in my best interests.

"How so?"

Kirara implied that he might be a seriously _dangerous_ demon.

"He's a fox."

Kirara wasn't so sure. I ignored her and began running my hands along the dark walls.

"Kirara, you're a fire cat, right?" I asked. "You think you could provide some light?"

She obliged, and soon the entire room was lit in the merry orange-reds of fire. I searched for anything that might be an exit, but found nothing. I searched again. There had to be something! I couldn't get locked in a cellar with no escape. That only happened to other people.

Desperate, I ran my hands along the walls. Finding nothing, I began moving old, rotting crates around. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I heard the creaking of the cellar door opening. Were they coming for me early? I was in so much trouble…

It was Hana, her round face lit by candlelight. I was relieved. "Are you alright?"

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. Was she here to help?

"You're no demon." Hana said softly. "Aya would have died whether or not you came, and we all know it. I would have been down here, though, instead of you."

"So?"

"I'm here to release you two," Hana mumbled, digging her foot into the dirt floor.

"What about you?"

'_Don't discourage her, Kagome!'_ I scolded myself.

"I'm running away anyways," Hana answered. "I've been nothing but miserable since becoming the priestess for this village."

"True that it's not for everyone," I said reluctantly.

"Come quickly," Hana said. "They haven't noticed that I'm gone yet, but they will soon."

"What about my bow?"

"I've already got it. Hurry!"

So Kirara and I followed Hana into the night silently.

* * *

The three of us had been walking for about an hour when I asked, "How do you catch a thief?" 

"What?" Hana looked confused.

"How do you catch a thief?"

"Well," she mused, "I suppose you offer him a prize he can't resist and wait for him to come to you."

I thought about this for a few minutes as silence descended on us again. I was about to speak again when Hana said, "You know why I wanted to become a priestess?"

It was a rhetorical question; she didn't expect an answer, so I didn't offer one.

"Before my mother was born, my grandmother was attacked by a demon," she began. "A traveling priestess saved her life. She killed the beast with a single arrow."

"That's impressive," I said. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. I knew who this priestess was.

"Yes. The most amazing thing of all was that the priestess herself didn't know that she had the power in her," Hana said. "She told my grandmother that she'd never had such strength before."

'_So Kikyo met this girl's grandmother years ago… She came here on her journey.'_

"I always imagined that I would wake up one morning and be powerful, just like Lady Kikyo," Hana continued. "That's why I became a priestess. I thought that rewards would come without effort."

"And?" I prompted her.

"They don't. It wasn't until later that I learned that Lady Kikyo had worked hard for her entire life to obtain the power to destroy a demon with a single arrow," Hana said. "It's just that in that moment, all of her hard work came to fruition."

"Nothing in life is free," I mumbled, but I don't think she heard me.

"You look just like I imagine Lady Kikyo would," Hana said. "You have long black hair and a slender face and the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen, but they're oh-so-sad… I think that's why I'm telling you all this."

I just smiled at her, and we lapsed back into silence. _'Even people who didn't know personally Kikyo comment on how similar we are.'_

We were approaching a crossroads, and I asked Hana which way she was going.

"I'm going to the right," she answered me.

"Do you think you would be fine alone?" I said.

"Of course," she said. "I was going to make this journey by myself before meeting you."

"Could you do me a favor?" I said.

"What kind of favor?"

"I want you to spread a rumor for me," I explained. "Tell everyone you see that you met a traveling priestess at this crossroads who carried the Jewel of Four Souls."

"What? Why?" She looked confused.

"I am going to catch a thief with a prize he can't resist."

And the two of us parted ways.

* * *

Minor Edits Made: 12/1/07 


	2. To Catch a Thief Part I

**II. To Catch a Thief (Part I)  
**

I had been on the road for a week. I was sick of sleeping in the cold, and running low on food.

"I hate to bother you, sir," I said, "but I sensed an ominous presence lingering above your inn, and I thought to myself, 'That man could use a wandering priestess such as myself to exorcise his place of business.'"

Yes, I was imitation Miroku, poorly, and no, the innkeeper clearly didn't believe me.

Still, he seemed to be willing to humor me, asking, "A wandering priestess, you say?" Well, at least he hadn't thrown me out in a rage like the last fellow I'd offered my holy powers to. Yet.

I was learning very quickly that the locals here had a very low tolerance for charlatans; I'd already been thrown out of two towns in as many days.

"Yes," I said carefully. Any luck and I'd have food. Kirara too. "I am a priestess, and I wander."

"You wouldn't happen to be the one with the Jewel of Four Souls, would you?" he inquired.

I was pleasantly surprised. I'd been nurturing my rumor for four days now, and it had somehow managed to get ahead of me? Hopefully, it wouldn't be long now.

"No," I answered nonchalantly. "But I think I met her on the road." I'd found that this lie, at least, was believable when I told it.

"Really?" the innkeeper asked me. "I can tell you need somewhere to stay. If you could elaborate, you've earned yourself a meal and a bed."

"Long black hair, sad blue eyes, very tragic," I said quickly. Possibly **_too_** quickly to be believed, but I was **_hungry_**.

"Did she say where she was headed?" he asked.

"No," I answered. He started to lose interest. _'Food and a bed, Kagome! Food and a bed!'_ "But she said that she was collecting 'Jewel Shards.'"

"Jewel Shards?" the innkeeper asked. I had him again.

"Something about the Jewel getting shattered into shards and the like…" I shrugged. "Is that the information you wanted?"

"Yes, yes," he said quickly. Maybe I wasn't the only liar. Something else, too, wasn't quite right about this man, but I didn't know what. Not for the first time that week, I found myself wishing that I had access to my damn powers.

"May!" the innkeeper called.

A slender woman in a pink kimono entered, bowed to the innkeeper, and led me away. As I left, I thought I caught a glimpse of something green wrapped around the innkeeper from the corner of my eye, but I dismissed it quickly. I was too busy being **_delighted_** that my rumor was traveling faster than me to worry about things I might have seen. I was going to meet my thief very soon.

If only I'd known how soon it would be…

* * *

I was having the oddest dream. 

_I was sitting on my own shoulder as I walked through town. All the locals were greeting me warmly, but something was very off. Their eyes were unfocused, as though they weren't seeing me at all._

"_Can I help you?" the innkeeper asked politely. Or at least, that's what Big Me heard. Shoulder Me was hearing something quite different: "Help me! Help me, please!"_

_Now he was offering me the opportunity to stay the night, but he was really saying this: "No! He'll take you too. Run away while you can! Run!"_

"_Who is he?" I asked. Instead of answering me, the innkeeper turned around very slowly and I stared in horror. There was a green vine protruding from the back of his head, trailing down his back and out the door. Every now and then it pulsed violently. "Run. Run while you still have your mind!"_

_Suddenly, I saw that May, his assistant from earlier, had a vine growing from her neck as well. Disturbed, I directed Big Me back outside. The innkeepers weren't the only ones…_

_All the unfocused locals had the strange vines, and they all seemed to converge on a single point near the town square I'd passed while searching for the inn._

'_Don't go there, Kagome,' I warned myself inwardly. 'You know it just means trouble.'_

_Ah, but I'd forgotten that Trouble was my middle name, especially when there are people to be protected. Kagome Trouble Higurashi, that's me. Even in my dreams, I get off on near-death experiences. Therefore, trouble just attracted me, and the mystery element of the whole thing attracted me even more. _

_Big Me started running towards the town square as fast as she could, me bouncing up and down on her shoulder. She stopped so suddenly, though, that I nearly fell off._

_There, in the center of town, was absolutely nothing of any value. It was just a clearing a little wider than the rest of the town, a little busier. How dull. Still, I stared in awe. Trouble. Where Big Me saw nothing, I saw a hungry green plant, a demon of some sort, and it was feeding off of the locals greedily with its vines._

_Even as I watched, one of its victims fell to the ground, completely drained of life, and now the hungry vine was detaching itself and crawling towards Big Me slowly, menacingly, and I was screaming, "NO!" at the top of my lungs._

I woke up in a cold sweat and checked the back of my neck. To my relief, I didn't have a hungry vine growing there, but suddenly I could sense that something was very, very wrong. I took up my bow and arrows and tried to wake Kirara, but she was sound asleep. Had there been something in the food? But then, why wasn't I…

'_You tend to be immune to these things, remember?'_

Right. Some sort of weird priestess immunity. Whatever was going on here, I would have to handle it without Kirara's help.

May entered with a strange seed in hand. Even from here, I could see the vine trailing from the back of her neck pulsing like the artery of some grotesque heart. Using my bow as a bludgeon, I managed to knock May out and ran like hell to where the demon plant was in my dream, leaving the sleeping Kirara to fend for herself. I doubted they were interested in her, anyway.

'_Kagome, you've finally lost it. You're fighting invisible plant monsters in the middle of the night.'_

Silencing the voice of doubt, I came to the town square. Empty, as expected. Where was the central plant? I couldn't seem to see it anywhere.

I closed my eyes and focused to the best of my adrenaline-powered abilities, wishing for all the world that I'd thought my decision for this quest through. No powers, no companions, and now I was alone in a strange village with a demon plant just waiting for the opportunity to eat me.

Yet I'd sensed something, somehow. That counted, right? Wasn't that powers?

A part of my mind argued that sensing things wasn't really "real" powers. After all, Sango could sense things, too, and she was no priestess. That worked for me. I focused my powers—no, my senses—on where I knew the heart-plant to be, and when I opened my eyes…

There it was, pulsing in all its people-eating glory.

Almost instinctively, I set an arrow to my bow and drew it back, ready to fire. Maybe I couldn't purify it, per se, but I could do a little bit of damage, right?

As though realizing that I had sensed it, it suddenly began glowing red, which, in my personal experience, was **_not_** a good color. Then there was a pulse of red light, and another, and now the pulses were growing faster, frenzied, as though building to a brilliant FLASH and then…

Fade to black.

* * *

I dreamed, but I don't recall of what I dreamed. I just remember the strange mix of urgency and despair. My first real memory was of my itching nose. I couldn't seem to scratch it. In my fuzzy pre-conscious state, I was frustrated. I tried to scratch again, but my arms weren't listening. I think I started mumbling something to them along the lines of, "Damn lazy arms… dunwannalisten…" 

That was about when I really **_woke up_**.

At first, everything was unfocused, but as I slowly began to wake more and more… I wished that I were back asleep. I was still in the clearing with the monster plant, only I was wrapped up so tightly in one of its vines that I could hardly breathe, my back propped against the beast. Not the best position.

Then I noticed **_him_**. His back was to me, but he was clearly a demon. He had unnatural silver hair and Inuyasha ears protruding from his skull, and (I almost squealed in delight) a tail. He had a tail! Absently, I wondered if this was the "thief" I was looking for. Was he under the sway of the demon vine as well?

'_Another victim, perhaps?'_

At the moment the thought popped into my head, he turned around and the victim idea died in my skull. He had the most beautiful, golden eyes I had ever seen… and they were not the terrified eyes of a victim or the blank eyes of the vine-villagers. His were the unfeeling eyes of a villain.

'_This plant… it's his, or it's working with him,' _I realized abruptly. I didn't have time for any more thoughts, though, because he suddenly spoke.

"You're awake." A beautiful voice for a beautiful creature, but his tone… so cold.

"Are you working with this vine?" I said, struggling against my bonds. "Killing people like that—controlling them—it's wrong!" His eyes narrowed at my statement.

'_What have you gotten yourself into, Kagome?'_

"Why is it you can see my vine? And how is it you know its nature?" He asked. "Answer me now, woman, and I'll spare you, I promise."

Great. A Sessoumaru-wannabe was giving me death threats. Unfortunately, after receiving them on a regular basis from a host of demons and a certain half-demon "protector" of mine they had lost most of their effect. I liked death-threat demons best, actually. All bark, no bite. I almost sighed with relief.

I looked back into those terrifying eyes again, though, and the sentiment there chilled me. He wasn't threatening me. He was informing me of the inevitable, and Inuyasha wasn't coming to save me. I didn't even have any powers. Maybe I was out of my league. Best to submit and wait for an opening.

"I'm a priestess," I answered. _'Though right now, I'm a bit useless in that regard…' _"I can see things others cannot."

"That is no answer," he stated. His expression softened, and his gaze became distant, as though he was thinking. "A priestess would still be unable to… Unless…? No, no…" Then he was back, and he turned that terrifying gaze back on me. "You're lying."

"About being a priestess?" I said. "I most certainly am not!"

"You're no priestess," he said. I wondered if he knew that he had just struck a nerve? "I'd sense your spiritual energy, if you were."

Ouch. "Well," I said sullenly, "maybe I'm having some… problems with my powers. And they're not **_working_** because I'm really stressed out, between trying to collect the last few Jewel shards and worrying about Shippo and…"

He silenced me, and a dark grin lit his face. "Jewel shards?"

'_That'll teach you to look before you leap, Kags. Deny! Deny as you've never denied before!'_

"I don't know what you're—"

"And here I thought that they were just **_rumors_** designed to bring the mighty Youko Kurama out of hiding," he said, suddenly close to my face. Startled, I breathed in deeply. His scent made me dizzy and a bit lightheaded; I almost sneezed. He pulled away just as quickly as he'd approached and, to my horror, the nearly complete Jewel was in his hands. I hadn't even felt him take it from my neck.

He looked quite pleased with himself as he began to expertly examine the Jewel, and it occurred to me that this demon was obsessed with trinkets. Had he forgotten me entirely? _'Not like that would be a bad thing…'_

After about five minutes of turning the Jewel over and over in his hands, he finally said thoughtfully, "There are pieces missing."

"Yes," I commented, feeling sarcastic (and still dazed by his odd scent). "Of course there are. Thus 'Jewel Shards.'"

Suddenly his attention was on me again, but it wasn't nearly so terrifying as moments before. "How did this happen?"

"I accidentally shot the Jewel with an arrow," I confessed frankly. Why was I saying this? "It shattered. Are you going to let me go now?"

"I said I wouldn't kill you if you answered my question," he said, returning his attention to the Jewel. "I didn't say that I would let you go."

"You—You said…" I thought back. My thoughts were a bit fuzzy, so it took a few moments. He'd promised not to kill me. Damn. "…never mind."

He had totally lost interest in me now. All that he could see was the Jewel. Thieving bastard.

'_Wait, wait. Thief, like the one from the villages?'_

Figuring that I might as well ask, I said, "Are you the thief who left all those poison roses for village girls to find?"

He turned his attention back to me, a sadistic grin on his face. "That I am."

"Why would you do that?" I asked. "Because you could?"

He was studying the Jewel again. How much could he study that one object? It was a **_pink sphere with cracks_**. That was it. No more.

"Hello?" I prompted him. _'Why are you bothering him, Kagome? He could **kill you**.'_

"Punishment," he mumbled. He was turning the Jewel in his hands again.

"For what?"

He looked me straight in the eyes. "Wanting what they shouldn't."

Suddenly, I remembered the conversation I'd overheard, the one that had started this whole mess:

"_No, it's not him," the other girl sighed. "I am in love with a demon."_

_This caught my attention immediately._

"_A demon?" Nona was skeptical._

"_The one who robbed father last week."_

"_Was he handsome?"_

"_He was absolutely beautiful, Nona," Sakura swooned. "He even winked at me!"_

"Well, someone's full of himself," I said. I was beginning to feel more comfortable with this demon, and I didn't know why. He was still dangerous; he had just been… de-clawed, somehow. He didn't exactly have a subduing spell wrapped around his neck like Inuyasha, but… I don't know how else to explain it.

He snorted, so I continued. "You know, I got locked up in a basement because of you."

"A basement?" He sounded amused. I think he was laughing at me.

"They were going to burn me," I explained. "That isn't funny, by the way."

"Not at all," he said. He was still laughing.

I didn't say anything for a few minutes, but then, very softly… "I have them, you know."

"Have what?" he asked absentmindedly.

"Your roses."

At this he looked surprised, and he turned to look me straight in the eyes. "Then why aren't you poisoned?"

"Why aren't I unconscious? I have weird priestess immunity," I said, still feeling uncharacteristically open. "They're in my bag… So pretty…"

"Well, if you have 'weird priestess immunity' when it comes to my plants, why are you so intoxicated right now?" he said.

"Wah?" was all I could muster at this point.

He appraised me carefully (I think, because by that point I was **_really_** out of it) and said, "You're quite pretty for a human, you know. And cleaner than most."

For whatever reason, I found this incredibly funny. "Pretty! You just said 'pretty'!"

He was still giving me that appraising look. "I haven't had a lay in a few days…"

"Really?" I asked. "Because I don't think I've had a lay in my **_life_**, and I'm eighteen!"

This, by the way, was also extremely funny.

My laughter was cut short, though, when he leaned forward and almost violently covered my mouth with his, and I think that I kissed him back just as forcefully, his intoxicating scent making me more and more dizzy, and then…

"I love you too, Inuyasha," I mumbled as I pulled back for a breath.

I tried to lean into him again, but I think he stopped me first. Either that, or I passed out. I do remember seeing him walking away from me, though. I was spending most of this quest of mine unconscious.

* * *

When I woke up (again), I was alone in the town square. The demon vine was gone, the demon who'd kissed me was gone, the Jewel was gone, and I was curled up in a ball, freezing cold. Memories suddenly came back to me in a flood, and I panicked. Had he…? No, he couldn't have. Could he? 

At least I was still wearing my clothes. Good sign, right? Nothing bruised or broken, either. I could (hopefully) worry about the rest later.

While I was still adjusting myself to my surroundings, the innkeeper appeared, followed by six or seven angry villagers. Uh-oh. Time to leave already?

"There she is!" he shouted. "She's the charlatan who tried to con her way into the inn!"

'_Dammit,'_ I cursed. _'Don't they even care that their demon plant is gone? No? They're going to attack me anyways?'_

In about fifteen minutes, I was formally banned from the village. The residents were unusually efficient. They showed no signs of being attacked by demon plants, either. Had I just been dreaming? My hand absently strayed to my neck, where the Jewel once hung. It was gone. Not a dream. Damn.

Once outside, I ran into a well-rested Kirara who had been thrown out as well. My bag, too, had found its way to the village's border. Slinging it over one shoulder and my bow over the other, I set off, and Kirara followed.

* * *

"…and he was gone when I woke," I finished. 

Kirara thought on my story, and then suggested that we go get Inuyasha.

"Not yet," I said. "I want to try and retrieve it on my own, first."

Kirara commented that my determination to "do it on my own" was going to get me killed.

"He didn't kill me before," I pointed out. "Why would he do that?"

Kirara suggested that it might have been the **_promise_** he'd made me: life for information. I didn't have any more information that would interest him, though.

"Kirara, please understand this," I pleaded. "This trip has just gone from bad to worse. I need to at least **_try_** and recover the Jewel, if only to say that I did."

Kirara implied that Inuyasha would be willing to help.

"The Jewel is my responsibility, Kirara," I said. "Inu won't always be there to help me."

Kirara retorted that he wouldn't **_mind_** always being there for me, especially if it meant me **_not_** dying a horrible death.

"I don't intend to die," I said. "Are you going to come with me, or will I have to find this man alone?"

"Mrow," Kirara said sullenly.

I grinned. At least I wasn't alone. Had my powers been working, I might have noticed just how not alone I was, might have felt the Jewel's presence mere meters from my position.

I still wouldn't, however, have heard a malevolent whisper in the dark, a chillingly beautiful voice whispering, "You, my strange little priestess, are a mystery… one I have every intention of solving."

* * *

Minor Edits Made: 12/1/07

**  
**


	3. To Catch a Thief Part II

**III. To Catch a Thief (Part 2)  
**

I brushed the hair out of my eyes as I ran, yelling for Kirara. Dammit. Where was the fire cat when I needed her? If I remembered correctly, I was nearing the edge of the forest, which meant open plains, which was bad. I might have been faster at weaving through trees and leaping stray bushes, but my pursuers would be faster in a straight sprint, I was sure.

'_Stupid, stupid, stupid!' _I cursed myself as I ran. _'Oh, look, Kirara. It's a campfire. Lets stop and befriend the group of **strange men** huddled around the fire. They couldn't **possibly** be a bunch of bandits! Oh, no!'_

Where was the cat? Was she still unconscious? She'd been knocked out before she even had the opportunity to transform. They'd grabbed me, and I'd managed to wriggle away, and I'd run like hell. After all, Kirara could take care of herself…

Plus they were only interested in her idiot mistress.

The forest was rapidly thinning. I was nearly winded already. I saw the open land ahead—were they going to catch me now?

And then suddenly I was running through tall grass at top speed, praying that they wouldn't catch me, that they'd given up, anything.

It was five minutes before I collapsed to my knees, sucking in air like I was dying. I'd run myself ragged. Keeping my deep, sobbing breaths as quiet as I could, I listened for pursuit. Nothing.

I waited another fifteen minutes to be sure, my breath gradually returning to me as my heart rate returned to normal. I finally stood up, brushing myself off. My clothes, thick as their material was, had been dirtied and torn during my frantic escape, and my hair had come loose from its ponytail. I was a **mess**.

I gave myself a quick once-over with my hands, checking for any serious injuries while pulling all the twigs out of my hair and brushing through it with my fingers. Reasonably presentable again, I set to getting my bearings when…

'_Why did they just stop chasing you?' _Damn. There was that pesky inner voice that so desperately wanted my death.

"I outran them," I said.

'_You don't believe that, do you?' _

"Of course I do!" I exclaimed in my own defense.

'_Great. Now you're talking to yourself.'_

Inner voice did have a point. Ignoring it, I examined my surroundings again. I'd passed through here earlier. There was a village to the East…

'_But why did they let you go?'_ I turned back to the woods, my bow ready. _'I'm just going to rescue Kirara,' _I reasoned. Deep down, though, I knew that curiosity would be the death of me.

I re-entered the forest cautiously, doing my best to step lightly. If I was quiet enough, I could sneak up on the bandits, maybe even figure out why they let me escape without even having to confront them again. That would be nice. No more running would be very nice indeed.

A familiar scent filled my nostrils. Human blood. Uh-oh.

Cautious as I was being, I still nearly stepped on top of the severed head before I saw it. I wanted to scream, but I quelled the instinct. There could still be living bandits out there.

'_Lets look at this from a distance, shall we, Kagome?' _My inner voice suggested. I complied.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Looks like his head was cut off very cleanly—I doubt he even saw it coming. His body is over…" I glanced around until I saw it nearby, "there." Examining the body, I saw that roots had twined themselves around his calves, binding him firm to the ground. Not a good sign. "Demon?"

I moved on, trying not to think too hard about the bandit. After years in the Feudal Era I still couldn't handle those blank, dead eyes staring up at my through the filmy aura of fresh blood. I doubted I would ever be able to handle it. I prayed that I wouldn't ever have to.

It was a few minutes later when I found the next bandit. I regretted finding him. While the previous man had been unaware of his death, this one had been painfully aware of it. His face was contorted in a silent scream. Rose vines were wrapped around his body tightly, binding him firmly to the tree behind him. There was a thick thorn right through his heart. That didn't disturb me so much as the familiar red rose positioned so that it could catch whatever blood he shed.

Tentatively, I plucked the flower, grimacing as I felt the dewy wet on its leaves. I was touching the bandit's blood…

'_What are the chances that the thief was in **this forest** at **this moment** killing bandits at random?'_

Something terrifying occurred to me then: what if he was following me? Since facing him the previous morning, I'd been dismissing odd sights: a wisp of gold here, a flicker of silver there… He **_had_** been following me!

I reached out with my senses. Nothing. _'No! He's there, I know it!'_ Focusing harder, I reached out again, and this time… I felt him there. He was hiding about five meters to my right, and he had the Jewel with him. I could sense it.

In one smooth motion, I'd nocked an arrow to my bow and pointed it in his direction. "Come out, you. I know you're there."

Nothing. He wasn't going to reveal himself? He thought I was bluffing? Fine.

"I'll purify you," I warned him. He was circling soundlessly, trying to get behind me. I followed him with my bow, ready to fire.

Then, so quickly that I couldn't even react, he was right **there**, and a clawed hand around my neck pinned me to the tree behind me. My bow was thrown to one side, and my arrow flew away wildly. Great.

"You wanted to talk to me?" he growled, tightening his fingers round my neck.

He was going to kill me? It felt like it. Why was he doing it so slowly, though? It wasn't as though he couldn't kill me as quickly as he'd killed those bandits, but rather… he was giving me a chance to defend myself.

I was too slow, though, because I blacked out before I could escape his grip…

* * *

…and came to with my back propped against the same tree. He was across the clearing as though he'd been thrown, rubbing his head as he sat up groggily. "Not as strong as last time…" he was muttering. "Still packs a punch, though… maybe less danger or…" right then he noticed me looking at him. "She recovered faster this time…" 

"Recovered faster from what?" I asked him. Against my better judgment, I walked over to where he was seated and plopped down next to him. I was half expecting him to try killing me again, but he just scooted away from me a bit and gave me a wary look.

"Nothing, woman," he said dismissing me with a wave of his hand.

"Please tell me," I said.

His eyes narrowed and his ears went back, reminiscent of a cornered dog. Was he… scared of me? Nah. He was a powerful demon. Why would he fear me?

"My name is Kagome," I said, extending my hand in friendship.

He studied me for a few minutes. "Youko Kurama," he finally said. My hand was disdained. I let it (and my fake smile) drop.

"What kind of demon are you, Youko?" I asked him politely. I had to make **sure** that he was a fox before I asked him…

"I am a **silver** fox," he said proudly.

'_Ah-ha!' _I exclaimed. I'd found a fox!

'_Do you really want this unstable killer raising Shippo?' _It was my inner voice again, back to haunt me. _'And he wouldn't take Shippo, either. Shippo isn't a **silver** fox. You heard the way he said that, right? Like it made him more **important**.'_

Damn. Inner voice was probably right.

"Silver?" I asked. _'Please let him answer this, too.'_

"We are the upper crust of fox society—the aristocracy, if you will," he explained. I think his chest puffed up with pride when he was saying it. Now he hazarded a furtive glance at me. The feeling from earlier returned—the one that he was scared of me. "For a priestess, you know very little about demons."

"Oh, so now you believe that I'm a priestess?" He hadn't believed me before. Nothing had changed between now and then, so…

_When I woke up (again), I was alone in the town square. The demon vine was gone, the demon who'd kissed me was gone, the Jewel was gone, and I was curled up in a ball, freezing cold._

"_Not as strong as last time…" he was muttering. "Still packs a punch, though… maybe less danger or…" right then he noticed me looking at him. "She recovered faster this time…"_

That plant… had I purified it? Had I somehow purified him, too, while I was unconscious? Or at least… come close? That would be more than enough to make me afraid of someone.

Something of my revelation must have shown on my face, because he said, "So you've figured it out?"

_It wasn't as though he couldn't kill me as quickly as he'd killed those bandits, but rather… he was giving me a chance to defend myself._

"You were following me," I said, "because you wanted to see me do it again. Whatever I did back in that village."

He nodded reluctantly.

"What did I do?"

He remained silent.

"Please tell me, Youko," I pleaded.

"You **exploded **with energy. Purified… everything," he said. "I think that your Jewel protected me, but even as it was… I was knocked unconscious briefly."

I thought about it. "It's possible," I said. "I guess. I don't really know that much about my powers."

He raised an eyebrow. "_'Don't know much about my powers?'_" he said mockingly. "If you can hold that much energy, you could purify… anything."

"I haven't been able to use my powers for a while," I said. "And before that I used them regularly. Is it possible that they just sort of **built up** over time?"

"Built up?" he prompted.

"When I first came he—er… used my powers, I literally purified a centipede's arms off with my bare hands. I haven't managed to repeat the stunt."

"So, theoretically, were I to just, say, cause you to use up your stored power," he began slyly, "I could then kill you without fear of retribution?"

"Or you could just kill me **without **knocking me out first," I suggested helpfully. "It only seems to happen when I'm unconscious."

Only when a familiar dark grin lit his face did I realize that I had just **told** a strange demon how best to **kill** me. _'Kagome, you are **too** nice,'_ inner voice scolded.

I began to scoot towards my bow. "I think I hear someone… calling me," I said.

"Really?" he said, the helpful demon from before gone. "Because I imagine I have better hearing than you, and I don't hear anything."

Instead of responding, I screamed, "Kirara!"

'_Please, oh please let her hear me!'_

"Kirara?" he asked, drawing closer. I drew back, my hand finally reaching my bow. "Tell me, have I met her?"

It was right about then that the fire cat appeared out of nowhere and landed right on top of Youko, clawing him violently. I managed to throw myself on her back, and then we were going straight up, me clinging for dear life to Kirara's back, her weaving in and out of forest vines that had suddenly come to life.

Then we were out in the fresh air and Kirara was flying at top speed…

* * *

We didn't stop until early evening, when we reached the outskirts of a new village. I was still paranoid about landing, but Kirara was exhausted, so we had no choice. The locals must have thought I was crazy, because I was giving anything green furtive glances as though it was about to jump up and attack. I probably looked crazy, too, disheveled as I was. 

Fortunately, the people here were friendly (or at least, they could see that I had been through an ordeal) because they offered me food and lodgings, which I accepted gratefully.

Once I was shut in the room they'd given me, tears started pouring out of my eyes, and I couldn't seem to stop them. At least I managed to keep the sobs down…

* * *

"So he's out," I was saying to Kirara as we flew across the countryside. "He'd probably mistreat Shippo, if he even took him." 

Kirara agreed and suggested that I try and find another fox.

"I know," I said. "I should, but we've already been running around for nine days, and we only found **him**. We don't have that much time left."

Kirara asked if I was giving up.

"No, I'm not," I said, "but I've already caused a **huge** mess. There is a strange demon running around with a nearly-complete Jewel, and I can't even sense the damn thing to find it again."

Kirara suggested fetching Inu.

"Is he your solution to everything?" I whined. "I can't always rely on him!"

Kirara said that this "avoiding Inu" thing was going to get me killed.

I half-agreed with her, but I was reluctant to go back and let Inu know that I had **lost** the Jewel. I didn't want to face the consequences of my actions, especially not **his wrath**. I kept telling myself that if I could get the Jewel back and pretend that I'd never left to begin with, everything would be fine.

Still, my Shippo problem remained, and my powers were still absent.

Kirara must have taken my silence for agreement, because she said that we could find Inu and bring him back here in a few days at the longest. The fox couldn't do much damage in that time, right?

"Can we find a hot spring first?" I asked. "I don't want to look like I've been rolling around in the mud for a week when I see them again."

Kirara consented, and we began to fly closer to the ground, searching for an acceptable spring.

* * *

We found a suitable spring after a longer-than-necessary search. I got in quickly and began soaping up (grateful that I'd remembered to bring soap and shampoo with me). I hadn't taken the time for a proper bath in two days, and I was beginning to smell like it, no doubt. 

"Come in, Kirara! The water's fine!" I called, but she stuck her nose in the air and walked away, not interested. Of course the **fire cat** didn't want a bath. "Fine. You can keep watch."

She sat down sullenly at the edge of the water, her paw trailing a delicate path along the spring's surface.

I was almost finished with my bath when I heard men's voices in the distance. "I can't believe he's bringing something so valuable **with** him," one said.

"I know," the other said. "Especially since so many valuables have been vanishing recently."

"It's his choice, though," the first answered, and then the two of them passed beyond my hearing.

"Did you hear that, Kirara?" I asked. "Something valuable, and it's here. Lets look into this."

Kirara suggested that we find Inu first.

"We can be waiting for the thief when he comes!" I exclaimed. "If it's really valuable, he'll be there for sure."

Kirara implied that I just wanted to see him again because I had a crush on him.

"He wants to kill me," I said.

Kirara joked that I was just sadistic like that.

"Kirara!"

* * *

We'd been looking into anything "valuable" traveling through the area, and we'd discovered that a local lord had recently gotten married, and he was bringing his new wife and her impressive dowry back home with him. 

After learning that, it wasn't too hard to learn their route, and from there it was fairly simple to find them. Kirara and I began trailing them, and followed them stealthily for two uneventful days before a familiar presence appeared on the edge of my senses.

'_I can sense him now?'_ I wondered, but I didn't question it further. Maybe my powers were finally returning?

The two of us were ready when vines wrapped around the lord's traveling party, and we were there before the thief himself made an appearance. Kirara did her best to cut the people free while I stood at the ready with my bow. He was coming closer, closer, and then suddenly…

He was there.

Too busy looking for the dowry to see me, he wasn't able to dodge the arrow that I shot at his heart. He did **feel** it, though, when it pierced his flesh, and that was when he noticed me. The pain on his face quickly turned to malice. He pulled my arrow from his body and threw it to the ground.

I managed to get off another arrow, and this one (to my surprise) was bright with my powers. _'Yes!' _I exclaimed mentally. _'They're coming back!'_

This arrow, though, only hit him in the arm. It seemed to deal more damage than the last arrow, but it still didn't phase him much. This arrow was thrown at my feet as he bared razor-sharp claws. I cringed, waiting for the inevitable impact, when I was violently jerked back and **up**. What…

"You didn't actually think I'd kill you quickly, did you?" he taunted. "I'm saving you for later!"

I twisted around and saw that Kirara was in a similar predicament. Great.

…and then I heard the tell-tale yell of, "Wind Scar!" and watched as the powerful attack knocked the fox back. Another silver-haired demon entered my line of sight.

The fox gave him a look and then snarled, "No prize is worth this kind of effort!"

He was gone in the blink of an eye, and his opponent had turned all that rage from moments before to me. Instead of yelling like he usually did, though, he said softly, "Kagome…"

"Good to see you again, Inuyasha."

* * *


	4. Swap Meet

**_IF you read this chapter before 12/1/07, THE ENDING HAS CHANGED a great deal... so much so that you will be completely lost next chapter if you don't at least re-read the ending! _**

**IV. Swap Meet **

It was a quiet evening, and that scared me more than any scolding I could have gotten. Inu especially was uncharacteristically quiet, just watching me from across the fire with his molten orbs as though I were about to run off again. Then, without a word, he vanished into the leafy darkness of the surrounding woods.

Miroku and Sango, too, were quiet, but the minute Inu left Miroku broke the silence.

"He was worried about you, you know," Miroku said.

"We all were," Sango added solemnly. "Once we realized that you hadn't gone home."

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, though I doubted that it would satisfy them. "I had my reasons."

There was a long silence after that, which Miroku finally broke when he said, "I'm going to try and find Inuyasha. Come on, Shippo."

"Okay!" the kit exclaimed, hopping up onto Miroku's shoulder. Apparently, Kirara and I weren't the only ones who'd gotten closer in the past week.

Now I was alone with Sango, and the silence that Miroku had interrupted was back. It was beginning to feel awkward, which bothered me even more. I'd never shared an awkward silence with Sango since meeting her. There was a sudden urge to talk about something—anything at all—to just make the silence end, so I took the first topic that came to mind.

"How were things while I was gone?"

"Quiet as usual," Sango said. "Demons are drawn to the Jewel, and since you brought it home with you…"

"I see that Miroku and Shippo have gotten much closer," I said.

"So have you and Kirara."

The silence was back. She didn't want to talk, but I wasn't about to let her get away without conversation. Not when I hadn't had a proper one with a fellow human being since leaving the party.

"I kind of wish I had gone home," I sighed wistfully, hoping that she would bite.

Presently, she took the bait. "So do I."

"You guys hate it when I go home!"

"That's because we miss you when you're gone," Sango said. "But at least when you're at home, we don't have to worry about you."

"There are demons at home, too!"

"In three years, you've fought one demon there. **One**." Sango was getting irritated. "But here, there are demons everywhere. Not only that, but the humans here are frequently just as bad! It isn't safe for someone as naïve as you to wander around by herself, especially not when you cannot even seem to use your powers."

"I'm sor…"

"Don't interrupt me with those empty words." Sango was more agitated than I'd ever seen her. "You worried us all to death, Kagome. Inuyasha especially. Sure, he wouldn't have agreed to help you out, but why couldn't you have asked me or Miroku or _**anyone**_ else to come with you?"

"I brought Kirara," I said. "I thought she was more than enough."

"Why didn't you trust me enough to tell me that you were going off on your own?"

"I don't know," I explained. "It was Kaede's idea, not mine."

"Don't blame Kaede. I don't care whose idea it was," Sango said. "I just want to know that you'll never run off on your own again."

"I'll never…" I started, but Sango interrupted. "I want a promise."

"I promise that I will never do that again," I said.

"Do what?"

"Run off on my own."

"After telling everyone that you are going home."

"After telling everyone that I am going home. Happy?"

"Very."

"Am I forgiven?"

Sango grinned at me and gave me a big hug.

"Well, then, in that case… I have something else to tell you." Might as well get one more itty-bitty little problem off my chest… "You have to promise not to be angry."

"Angry? I don't think you could have done anything to make **me** angry, though if you went off and found yourself a new man, Inu might get upset," she joked.

"Very funny." I stifled a laugh before continuing. "But I want a promise."

"I promise I won't be angry," Sango said.

"I lost the Jewel."

In retrospect, maybe that wasn't the best topic for me to choose right after her forgiveness had been granted. Especially since her response was something along the lines of, "What?!"

Oops. Too late to change the topic to something safer now... "Remember that fox you guys saved me from?"

"Yes," Sango said tentatively.

"Remember how I said that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"…yes," Sango said.

"I was lying," I continued. It was about then that Miroku came back with Inuyasha. I didn't notice, though, and continued to dig myself deeper. "He stole the Jewel, and…"

"What?!!" Inuyasha interrupted. Uh-oh. "You **lost** the **Jewel**?"

Well, at least Inuyasha was back to his usual, bitchy self. "I know who has it and**everything**," I said. "It's that fox from the caravan."

"Why didn't you **say so** at the time?" Inuyasha exclaimed.

"It kind of slipped my mind…" I said meekly. Inu was furious now.

"It **slipped your mind**? How does your **only responsibility** in this era just fucking **slip your mind**?"

"Inuyasha," Miroku tried to interrupt, but Inuyasha wasn't having any of it. "Don't you **start,** monk. Not only did she lose her **abilities**, she lost the _**Jewel**_. She's worthless!"

"Inuyasha!" Sango and Miroku scolded him at the same time I yelled, "Sit!"

And then I curled up in my sleeping bag, not wanting to run blindly off into the woods where the cause of my problems might be waiting, and yelled, "Don't bother me! I'm sleeping!"

All I could think of as I drifted to sleep, though, was that Youko would **never **have yelled at me like that, though I wasn't to recall the treacherous thought until months later…

* * *

"So tell me again how you found the Jewel thief before," Miroku repeated. 

It was morning, and Inu was scouting ahead like he always did after we had a big argument. Miroku was interrogating me for the third time that day, trying to memorize any relevant information, while Shippo sat sternly on the monk's shoulder, doing his best to imitate him and failing miserably.

I sighed. "He is a thief. He pursues anything valuable," I said again. "I chose something valuable and luck did the rest."

"So he's a thief," Miroku began, counting off what we knew about Youko on his fingers as he spoke, completely oblivious to the fox kit on his shoulder doing the same thing. "He likes precious things, he likes to steal them, but he desires the rewards without effort. He did run away when we showed up, after all."

"I don't think that he is bothered by effort," I mused. "I think that he hadn't come prepared for resistance. You would understand if you'd seen how carefully he'd prepared when he stole the Jewel. There was a lot of effort in that…"

"Yes, I know," Miroku said. "Legions of possessed villagers and such."

"Hey, you two," Sango interrupted, materializing from behind us. She and Kirara had been bringing up the rear while Miroku and I chatted. "I think we're being followed."

Kirara mewled in agreement.

There was a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, one that I hadn't felt in the longest time, almost as though I were sensing…

"Jewel Shards, and a lot of them!" I cried. "He's here!"

Suddenly we were looking everywhere at once, trying to find the demon that we all knew was there, but there was… nothing. He was there, but he wasn't at the same time. It was frustrating.

"Kagome, where are the shards?" Miroku said softly to me.

I reached out my senses and touched the Jewel. "That way," I said softly and pointed to my right.

"Lets get him," Sango said. "Miroku and Shippo, you go around his right, and I'll sneak around his left. Kirara, you and Kagome approach him directly. He'll be surrounded before he even knows what hit him."

The others vanished into the trees, and just as I started to follow Kirara into the underbrush, stealthy green wrapped itself around me, and I found myself falling into darkness…

'_This has happened an awful lot recently…'_

* * *

"Your friends are not very skilled guardians." It was him. Again. 

I gave him an exasperated glare, and would have said something had he not gagged me. It's not that I wasn't scared, because some part of me was. However, when something--such as getting kidnapped--becomes routine, it suddenly becomes much less frightening and much, much more annoying.

"You'll be pleased to know that you did not explode like before when I brought you here."

I rolled my eyes.

"It was a very real risk, you know." He sounded so frank that it was almost comical.

"My intention is not your death," he reassured me. "Well, not at the moment."

And sure enough, the chilling look in his eyes from our first meeting was gone.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here," he said, almost echoing a classic villain like Naraku. I was beginning to see parallels. Not only had this fox and I clashed wills multiple times without casualties; I was beginning to suspect that he was actually coming up with excuses to not kill me. Naraku had, too, at the end. He'd had too many opportunities to just end it all, but he'd underestimated me, thought he could control me, or at least use me. Maybe Youko was about to make the same error.

So lost in thought was I that I barely heard him say, "You see, after hearing that conversation you had with the demon slayer, I've decided that you're quite unusual." It was enough to bring me back to my senses, though.

"Now, normally I don't collect 'living' things," he said, and there was a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, "but I've decided to make an exception, because you really do seem to be one of a kind. I even traded that bauble of yours for you--it's worthless cracked, after all."

I made a panicked "Mmph!" sound.

He grinned.

"I'm only explaining this to you because you seem moderately intelligent and possibly even well-educated," he continued. "That in itself is unusual in this day and age."

I tried to talk again, and made another muffled sound.

"You can speak all you want in a moment, so be patient," he said.

I gave him a look.

"But I've been doing my research, too," he explained, "and there is a rumor floating around that you are the reincarnation of a priestess who died a mere fifty years past, and that at one time you wore the most outlandish garb. Not only that, but you disappear for days at a time, which in itself isn't so unusual, since people tend to do that, but when combined with the other two things..."

I was holding my breath.

"You are the granddaughter of an illegitimate child of the priestess Kikyo by her demon lover."

This was definitely a 'what the hell?' moment.

"Your grandmother--or father, I neither know nor care--was sent away from Japan as a baby to distant lands for fear that the reputation of your demonic great-grandfather would be tarnished by evidence of his love for a priestess, where she was raised by a wealthy uncle with stories of his origins, which were passed down to her children and, in turn, to you. Being the curious, lively young woman you are, you went in pursuit of these origins as soon as you came of age. As you are homesick, though, you go home from time to time, thus 'vanishing.'"

'He's cute when he's hypothesizing,' a treacherous piece of me noted before I silenced it.

"Now, there are a few pieces that still don't fit, such as your possession of the Jewel, but with a bit more thought the answers will present themselves."

He removed my gag.

"Shocked at my insight?"

I suppose he expected me compliment him on his overwhelming intelligence. Instead, I giggled.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Most of your story is wrong," I answered truthfully, because there were little pieces that he had gotten right, "and the bits you've made up yourself are... so ridiculous!"

The look he gave me immediately killed my laughter. It wasn't the cold, "I will kill you" look from earlier, but there was enough threat in it to make me wary.

"Deny your origins then, Kagome."

When he said my name, it made me shudder (though not in a terrible way).

"However, you will be here for a very, very long time," he said, "and you are a social creature. If I leave you alone for a few days, I am sure that all your secrets will be shared willingly."

"Here?"

"In this room," he answered. "This is where I keep my prizes."

For the first time, I examined my surroundings. We were in a cave, vast in scale, full of shelf after shelf of glittering goods. Thick vines crawled along the walls of the cave, across the floors, everywhere that treasure was not, really. It was dimly lit from a small opening at the very, very top of the cave. Light filtered down naturally, though there were strategically placed mirrors to shine light into the places it didn't touch. I was propped against one of the walls.

"There's a hole up top," I noticed. "Leave me alone for a few days and I won't be here when you come back." As an afterthought, I added, "And I'll take whatever I can carry with me. As punishment."

"Punishment?" he sounded amused. Oh, yes. He was underestimating me. It would take a while to find a way up there, but...

"For caging something you cannot possess," I answered, feeling very clever for throwing his own words back at him.

"That hole 'up top' is rock just like everything else," he informed me. "It's been enchanted to become transparent whenever I activate it, but very soon I will leave, and I will put it out as though it is a candle. Then you will be alone, in the dark, trapped."

"Don't worry, though," he assured me. "You'll grow accustomed to it. You're a piece of my collection now."

"You will be in this room of mine for a very long time."

My only thought was, 'I hope Shippo doesn't grow up to be like him.'

And then everything was dark--the hole in the ceiling was gone--and so, I was certain, was Youko. I couldn't be sure, though.

I couldn't see a thing.

* * *

**Major Alterations Made: 12/1/07 **

**CY: **Drastically altered this chapter. Seriously. I'll put a reminder at the top of the next one to let ppl know the end of this chapter's changed. The last one was rushed and getting into TR-level complexity. New chapter will be either tomorrow or next Fri/Sat, I hope. Apologies for the wait!


	5. Discussions in the Dark

**IF you read chapter 4 before 12/1/07, THE ENDING HAS CHANGED a great deal... so much so that you will be completely lost this chapter if you don't at least re-read the ending!**

* * *

**V. Discussions in the Dark**

I gazed up at the ceiling. Black, like everything else in this place. At first, sitting alone in the dark in some feudal-era demon thief's treasure den had been frightening; now, though, I'd calmed myself. After all, a practiced thief had seen me as a treasure valuable enough to "steal." Not only that, but he'd used the Jewel as a distraction, effectively trading it for me.

Did that mean he thought I was worth more than the Jewel?

In a way, it touched me. Of course, it was also damn annoying that he was treating me like some kind of inanimate object.

Then the lights flicked on, and he strolled in.

"Here, girl. Hungry?"

Correction: I wasn't an inanimate object. I was a pet.

He'd come, and he'd feed me, and ask me about my origins and leave again, unsatisfied. Even if I wanted to tell him, he was unlikely to believe that she was traveling through time with the aid of a strange magical well. He was beginning to suspect, though, that wherever I came from, however I'd gotten to his Japan, there was something supernatural involved.

And in the dark, when I was alone, I practiced.

My eyes closed, my legs crossed, I would clear her mind completely and direct my focus to the powers inside of me.

It had been surprising, to re-discover them on my second day in my prison while lost in the trance between waking and sleep. Even more surprising, though, was the realization that Youko was, in a way, doing me a favor. All I had to do was practice, day in and day out. I even managed to illuminate the room with her own energy once, though I'd yet to repeat the stunt.

Sometimes, I wondered about my friends, too. Where they were, whether they were searching for me. After a frantic search of my prison on the first day, I'd concluded that there was no escape for me, not without help.

'_Or maybe you don't want to escape,'_ a little voice in the back of my head nagged. It had become more vocal, since I'd come here.

I'd gotten better at ignoring it, too.

* * *

Sometime around the fourth day, I think he realized that he wasn't going to learn my story by interrogating me, because it was his seventh (he visited twice a day) visit when he entered the room, flicked on the lights, and plopped himself down beside me.

"You're quite the conundrum, do you know that?" he commented, sounding frustrated. "I can't seem to piece you together into a single being."

He paused, so I encouraged him. "What do you mean?"

"Every time I think I understand… I learn something new, and I am forced to re-evaluate that understanding." He shot me a toothy grin. "You're the biggest mystery I've had in a while."

The one-sided conversation was feeling over. Fearful that he'd leave, I said quickly, "What was the last one you had?" He'd had me pegged. I was indeed a social animal.

"Last what?"

"The last big mystery!" I exclaimed.

I didn't notice the say his eyes narrowed slyly, the way Shippou's did when he was plotting something. It didn't even cross my mind that he was a fox, and foxes are quite clever when need be, and maybe, just maybe, this was all just another way to extract my secret…

"Well, about a century ago, there was an especially rich lord, with the most ludicrous defenses of a treasure that I have ever seen…"

* * *

When he returned that evening, he told me more stories of his adventures—the first thing he'd stolen, the time he'd nearly gotten himself killed, how he'd been searching for a talented partner for years now—and when he subtly implied that stories should be traded for stories, I told him my own, only remembering to censor the bits about home because of habit.

After a few of these visits, I found myself beginning to enjoy his company, though when I was alone in the dark, I would always remember the odd things that he did, the things that seemed just… off, things that reminded me that he wasn't chatting for the sake of chatting; he wanted something very specific from me.

"Well, I've told you about my home, tell me about yours?" he'd say, or, "My parents have been dead for centuries. Are yours still alive?" or spew out his theory of the day. They got more entertaining with each passing day.

And then, just when I was feeling very comfortable with this arrangement, he asked the million-dollar question: "Why were you looking for me?"

I stopped breathing for a moment before I said, "Well, I wanted to get the Jewel back, so…"

"No, before. When we met at that village."

"Oh. Then." There was a long silence, him waiting patiently for an answer, me trying to come up with a good one.

He decided to help me along. "You weren't there to slay me; were you just there to ask me about those roses you'd found?"

"How do you know it wasn't all chance?" Ah, what a witty response.

"Were it 'chance,' as you so phrased it, you wouldn't have intentionally spread a rumor about that Jewel of yours."

"Started a rumor? I never…"

"From the stories you've told me," he said, "it doesn't make sense that you'd draw such attention to yourself as to start a rumor if that wasn't your aim to start with. You've been guarding the Jewel for three years, you said. I'd have heard about it before now, if you'd been no good at quelling the spread of rumors."

"I… um…" I started, but he gave me a dark look. "I was looking for you."

"Because I'd killed those girls?"

"Well, that was how I heard about you, but that's not why I was searching…"

"Then, why?"

This was a question I could answer for him, since this was a "mystery" I'd no doubt he could piece together without my assistance. I didn't have to, but I wanted to.

"Do you know why I lost my abilities to begin with?" I began. He said nothing. "I was nervous. You see, that Jewel… it's my charge, and once I've pieced it back together, I will go home."

"Home?" He was hopeful.

"Is in a secret place."

"Of course." He snorted.

"But you see, when I go home, I'll have to leave everything that I have here, behind."

"Then home is distant." He was pensive. "I had that right, at least."

"Home is distant," I confirmed. "But I've formed attachments here, important ones, and Kaede, the one-eyed priestess I told you about, thinks that I'm so anxious about leaving one in particular behind that I've sealed my powers away. Without them, I can't detect Jewel Shards, and if I can't detect Jewel Shards, I can't complete the Jewel."

"So you've psychologically blocked yourself from completing your task…" he said. "Interesting, but what does this have to do with looking for me? You are trying to tie up loose ends, but…"

"I wasn't looking for you specifically—I just happened upon your work, and thought it looked like something that a fox might do…"

"Indeed."

"I've told you about Shippo, my adopted child, right?"

"Yes, yes."

"I haven't told you, though, that he is also a fox demon."

"I believe I see where this is going," he said.

"Indeed," I said in my best imitation of him. "I realized that he had no one to look after him when I went home, and his parents died when he was young, so I wanted to find one of his own kind to raise him when I'm gone."

"Like myself."

"Like yourself."

And he nodded, and made his thinking face, and vanished, leaving me alone in the dark again.

* * *

He didn't speak to me again until two days later, day nine of my imprisonment. He only said four words to me: "I'll take the brat."

* * *

** CY:** So. Was going through old files, found this, and realized, "Hey... it's been more than a year since I've properly updated this. I should probably finish this sucker off." So. Sorry about the super duper long wait, next chapter should take LESS than a year to write (six months! huzzah! ...jk), and that will be the last "chapter" in the actual story, with an epilogue in the present day. So, two more chapters, but one will likely be pretty short (so quick to write!). Like this chapter...


	6. Finale

**VI. Finale**

I stared at him, incredulous. "You'll take Shippo?"

"Yes, yes," he said, impatient. "Isn't that what I just said?"

"It is," I said.

"Then we have a deal," he told me. "I could use an apprentice in my old age, and from what you've told me this boy possesses some talent."

For quite possibly the first time in my life, I kept my mouth shut and gave some thought to what I next said.

"What if I don't want you to have him?"

He looked exasperated. "You said you were looking for **me**, remember? You wanted **me** to raise your kit when you go back home. Why would you change your mind?"

I looked him dead in the eye. "Because I don't want Shippo to be like you."

Perhaps during one of our first encounters, I'd have been less frank. However, by this point, I'd lost my fear of him entirely. He was driven by curiosity, and as long as he still had unanswered questions, he wouldn't hurt me.

I half expected him to snarl at me. Instead, though, he stepped closer to me, and I took a step back. Another step. I matched it. I didn't want him any closer. He didn't want to play games with me. A blink of an eye and he was behind me, arms wrapped round my shoulders to prevent my escape.

"And what's so wrong with me?" he asked softly.

My heart beat a million miles a minute at his touch. Perhaps my fear of him wasn't entirely gone.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "Well, you're very full of yourself. You kill girls for **looking** at you, for goodness sake!"

He didn't say anything, so I went on. "You're absolutely ruthless, obsessive, scheming, not to mention that you're a thief, which is **hardly** a choice occupation for Shippo, you…"

He interrupted me then. "All that you've mentioned are traits universal to my kind. You'll not find a one of us who isn't as you've described. Even your kit will be like me, one day."

"You **kill girls**. Because they **check you out**," I repeated.

"Only the ones that aren't worthy of me," he said nonchalantly. He'd let me go, slipping around in front of me.

"Which is **all** of them," I said, leaning up close to his face.

"Not **all** of them," he said, leaning right back at me.

Suddenly aware of our proximity, I stepped back. "Considering your opinion of yourself?" I said. "I bet there isn't one girl…"

And he leaned forward and kissed me, hard. It wasn't one of those soft, gentle ones—it was violent, and passionate, and when he backed away, my knees threatened to give out. What was that? Inuyasha had never kissed me like that! He was always so gentle, so tender, so… boring?

No, no, that wasn't right. He wasn't boring. I loved him! I was just confused.

…but then why was my heart beating so quickly?

"I can assure you that there's one," he said with a toothy grin.

"Too bad," I said, regaining my composure just in time, "her heart's already spoken for."

"That can be fixed," he assured me before kissing me again. This time I was expecting it, and made a half-hearted attempt at pushing him away before letting my arms snake around his neck as I returned the kiss.

It was longer, this time, before he pulled back. "How about now?"

"Sorry… I'm still… taken?"

The question in my statement must have encouraged him, because he stole another kiss…

_And you always thought that the cheater would be __**Inuyasha**__, _a little voice in the back of my head murmured disapprovingly. However, it's difficult to listen to the voice of reason when someone is doing his damndest to take your breath away.

He just had to screw it all up, though, when he pulled away and asked me too casually, "So where's home?"

I slapped him. Hard.

He left me alone in the dark again, rising quietly as a ghost and vanishing without a word. I hardly noticed, though. I was trying too hard not to cry. Had he just taken advantage of my feelings in order to get an answer to his question? Did he think I was so desperate for attention that I'd jump into the arms of the first stranger to offer me company? **Was I** so desperate for attention that I'd just **kiss** a stranger like that?

Granted, he wasn't really a stranger anymore, and he'd been the one to come on to me, but didn't Inuyasha deserve better than that? And, the thought that bothered me more: had he orchestrated our encounters up until this point, planned even this latest one, in order to satisfy his curiosity? Did he think it was acceptable to toy with me like that? I wouldn't put it past him. Somehow in all of this I'd stopped seeing him as a monster.

"Idiot," I murmured. "You're just too forgiving!"

It was maybe an hour or two before he was back. I was ready for him. When light flooded the room and he appeared before me, I stood from my spot on the floor and looked at him dead in the eyes.

He opened his mouth as though he were about to say something. I assumed that he was about to ask his all-important question again. I beat him to it, though.

"My name is Kagome Higurashi, and my home is five-hundred years in the future. I get here through a well at the shrine with the assistance of the Jewel Shards. Happy now?"

He looked a bit dazed for a moment, probably absorbing the information I'd just fed him before saying, "Yes."

"Good. I'd like to leave now."

He didn't say anything as he led me through his caves, blindfolded. He only said one thing more to me, in that cold tone he'd first used: "You have ten minutes to be gone from my sight, after which time I will hunt you down and end your life."

As I walked away, I peered back and thought I caught a hint of regret on his features.

'_Wishful thinking, Kagome m'dear,'_ my inner voice told me.

And just like that, my stint as his prisoner was over. Had I known that I could've been released for just that piece of information, I might've fed it to him sooner and saved myself a great deal of trouble.

&

"It's over there," I said, pointing ahead and to the right. It had been two months, and we'd collected nearly all the shards. This one was the last.

I'd not yet fully regained my powers, but I could sense shards now. Normal arrows might be useless in combat against demons, but that was hardly a problem with allies as strong as my own. We'd defeated Naraku, and there **wasn't** a demon tougher than him.

My friends had been wandering nearby the Youko's hideout, for two weeks at least, they told me later, ever since I'd been captured and Inuyasha's nose had led them there. I was glad to see them again, though I doubted I'd be able to look Inuyasha straight in the eyes again and tell him I still loved him. I wasn't quite sure what I felt anymore. Depressed, maybe.

When Sango expressed concern at my seemingly listless state, I explained it away as the obvious fear: "What happens when the Jewel has been completed?"

She just gave me a hug.

And now we were on to our last shard—the demon carrying it was strong by regular standards, but by this point, so were we, and we dispatched him quickly. I picked out the Jewel Shard, and clasped it in my hand, the nearly completed Jewel in the other. The two were drawn to each other so strongly that I had to struggle to keep them separate.

"So?" Inuyasha asked. "You gonna finish the Jewel?"

"I wanted to say my good-byes first," I said. "Just in case."

"Good-byes?" Inuyasha looked surprised.

"Yeah. You didn't think I'd stay here forever, did you?" I said. "We both knew I'd have to go home permanently at some point."

"Well, yeah," he said. "But I though maybe… I dunno."

"It's likely that once the Jewel has been completed, the well will be closed," Miroku said.

"You yourself said she can only travel through it with Jewel Shards on her," Sango said. "That speaks of a purpose that's about to be fulfilled."

"I was hoping that you'd stay here…" Inuyasha said quietly. "With me—er… us."

Not so long ago, I would've jumped at the offer to stay with him. I like to think that I'd grown up a little bit, but really, my feelings had changed and I was feeling too horrible to admit it to him.

"I have a life in the future," I said. "As much as I love you guys, all of you, and the Feudal Era, it's time for me to go back. I don't belong here, as much as I'd prefer it. After all, you guys don't have calculus here."

Sango smiled. She'd heard me wrestling with the subject several times.

"I'll look for you guys in the history books," I promised them. "No worries."

"I'll probably still be around in five-hundred years, Kagome," Shippo said. "Maybe Inuyasha, too! I promise I'll come visit!""

I grinned. "Alright, then. I'll have to hold you to that," I said. "And what are you going to do if you run into trouble?"

"Find Inuyasha," Shippo said faithfully, trying his best to not roll his eyes. I'd been drilling this into him constantly since I'd re-joined the group.

"Good," I said. "And as for the rest of you…"

I looked around to all of them. I'd said my heartfelt good-byes the night before, making today easier—hugs and farewells were spread around, with an especially long one for Inuyasha, who whispered in my ear, "I'll be waiting for you. I promise."

I smiled weakly. He might've been an ass at times, but he more than made up for it in moments like these. Maybe by the time he came to find me in the future, I'd be over the lingering effects of Youko. My heart clenched at the thought of him. Maybe not. It was still stuck in my head, a combination of wondering whether or not I'd been used (because it was becoming more and more doubtful every time I replayed the events in my head) and obsessing over my most passionate encounter with the opposite gender to date.

And then I took a deep breath, closed my eyes tight, and brought the two pieces of the Jewel together. That had been surprisingly easy. I looked up at my friends with a grin on my face. I wasn't disappearing right away after all.

Then the Jewel flashed brilliant white, and I closed my eyes instinctively. When I opened them again, I was standing back in the well house. I was home again. Just in case I could still travel back, I jumped to the bottom of the well. Nothing. I'd never had a choice to begin with. Crawling from the well, I brushed tears from my eyes and put on a brave face to go and tell my mother that I was home for good.

My trips though the well had finally come to an end.

* * *

**CY:** Told you it wouldn't take another year! There's an epilogue coming soon-ish (likely by the end of the week... yaaay summer!) It's really another chapter, but it's going to be uber-short, so... epilogue! I'm eager to finish this up so I can move on to other, better planned things...

Of course, it's not as though I didn't PLAN this whole thing in advance. No. Not at all. I planned it meticulously. Here is my outline... from a year ago:

1. Hunting for him

2. Clash 1

3. Clash 2

4. Trapped

5. Psychology

6. Conclusion

Yeah. Had I not taken that big break, I think everything would've been a bit more consistent (though really, not much). Ah, well. That's what revision's for.


	7. Epilogue

**VII. Epilogue**

I opened the door. Silence. Mom was out with her new boyfriend (of all things), Souta was at his friend's house, and grandfather was taking his nap. I had the house to myself for a few hours.

I'd just finished all of my make-up work (a real monumental task), and I finally had free time again. Not thinking about school constantly, though, meant thinking about my friends, and the Jewel, and wondering if Shippo had survived without me, and… him.

Mostly him.

I was reading another book on the Feudal Era when there was a tentative knock at the door. Annoyed, I set down my book. It was probably the girls again, trying to pry out information about Inuyasha, or ask me why I wasn't with Hojo. I almost didn't answer the door. However, then I remembered that Mom had been expecting an important package, and this could be it, so I stood up grudgingly and made my way to the door.

Grumpily, I opened the door, and found myself face to face with a handsome redhead. Not one of the girls, then. Not anyone that I knew, either. He was, however, someone that I might **like** to know.

"Can I help you?" I said as politely as I could.

"It's you," he said softly. He had an aristocratic tone to his voice—he sounded well educated, and almost familiar.

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I remained silent until he said abruptly, "I'm Suichi Minamino, by the way." He extended his hand for me to shake.

"Kagome Higurashi," I answered in kind, "though I suspect you already knew that."

"I did," he said.

Another long pause.

"Do you have any idea how many girls by the name of 'Kagome Higurashi' live at shrines in Japan?"

"I've never looked it up," I said. So he'd been looking for me? Could this be Shippo?

"Well," he assured me, "there are quite a few."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I just want you to know how difficult it was to find you, with what meager information you gave me. 'A shrine five-hundred years in the future' is hardly specific."

And suddenly, I knew exactly why he looked familiar.

"Youko?" I hissed, taking a step back, my heartbeat quickening.

He saw my reaction and frowned a bit.

"Kurama," he said. "I go by Kurama now."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm… not really sure," he said. "I had not planned past this point."

"Well," I said, hesitant, "why don't you start by coming inside?"

"I would love to," he said.

And that was the beginning.

* * *

**CY:** This story is just begging for a sequel-- so much still needs to be tied off... If it happens, I'll write the whole thing before I start posting it and update regularly. Promise.

Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me for the whole story! I'm really grateful for the support. I seriously cannot finish a story without people like you guys.

Also: OMG I've just written a romance that adheres to the formula in every romantic comedy ever made... (They fall in love, have a fight/break up, and he goes after her in the end to get her back)

IMPORTANT: If anything is OOC (very likely, in one of my stories) or inconsistent or generally awful, be sure to let me know in a review or send me a message. I'll be revising this at some point.


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